Kinect Message Board older than one year ago

#xbox360 I possess a box. In that box was an Xbox 360 Kinect and games. Courtesy of Microsoft, Kotaku is a gaming news outlet that can now be the controller. We have Kinect. One is hooked up to my TV. More »

#xbox360 Microsoft says its next generation video game console is backed by a half-billion dollar ad campaign and packs in technology ripped from the fantasy world of Minority Report. It's also already sitting in more than 40 million living rooms. More »

#kinect While Microsoft's first attempts at a motion-sensing peripheral were relatively primitive affairs, the very first prototype of Kinect was worth an absolute fortune. More »

#tv Looks like Microsoft ponied up a bit of cash to have Kinect appear in this week's episode of Chuck. I hope it wasn't much, though, because this isn't advertising. It's dissuading. More »

#clips We know, Kinect is shooting for a market more familiar with the Wii than with Modern Warfare perks, but it's still a little strange seeing an Xbox 360 console pop up on the Home Shopping Network. More »

#apple Video games like LEGO Harry Potter and fancy new controllers—Kinect and PlayStation Move—are among the most wished-for items this holiday, according to a new survey. But it's Apple's iOS-based devices that kids are demanding most. More »

The flood continues this week, with more and more fourth quarter gaming goodies falling from the sky. And with the flood comes the ever-present question: Which games deserve my money? Listen as we ponder the question without ever properly answering it! We've also got plenty of Kinect talk -- because that's coming out next week, remember? And finally, just for the hell of it, we talk about Ice T.

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Hosts: Richard Mitchell (SenseiRAM, @senseiram), Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta; Break: "I Remember, You Were Wild" by Kelley Stoltz

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Remember the difficult keyboard-sharing procedures you and your friends had to adopt when playing the original You Don't Know Jack with three players? If the GameStop listing for the upcoming entry into the trivia franchise is correct, you won't have to keep in such close proximity this time around -- the game is mentioned under a GameStop splash page in a list of Kinect-compatible games.

We've contacted THQ to find out if the retailer's listing is on the level, and if so, what kind of gestures the game will be able to recognize. Most importantly, we need to know if it's going to work with the Game Boat. Otherwise, what's the point?

[Thanks, Exnihilio13!]

"Now, it you're wondering what in the world is Xbox 360 Kinect, we're giving you an idea of what it is: Gaming is a big part of it, but there's even more! Because there's a feature called 'Xbox Live Entertainment' that's going to allow you to not only play your favorite games, but you will be able to now go ahead and download movies; you can download music; you're going to be able to access your Facebook and your Twitter; and there's a lot more to this.

"The interesting thing about Xbox 360 is that you get rid of con-trollers -- there's no controllers!

"So Cory Bergeron is our gaming expert, and he's going to show you how your body -- and check out what Cory's doing -- your body is the actual controller for Xbox 360 Kinect!"

During an interview with Joystiq at a Kinect pre-launch event in San Francisco, Microsoft Games Studios veep Phil Spencer told us that early retail indication for Kinect is showing strong interest in the new platform. "Pre-order numbers are good," he said. "The retail channel seems to be excited for what we're doing. We feel good about our supply that we can build. I imagine we're going to have to work hard to fill out the demand that's out there, is kind of our sense, but we're willing to work hard so that's fine."

It's good to hear Microsoft is willing to put the work in, since Ubisoft's VP of sales and marketing, Tony Key, thinks the device will be "sold out" at launch. You can look forward to our full interview with Spencer on Monday, which discusses everything from the upcoming Kinect launch to Xbox 360 S dominance in North America over the past four months, and even the PlayStation Move.

#onlyinjapan Two girls from SKE48, a spin-off act of Japan's most popular female group, are appearing in Kinect television spots. The U.S. might be just now getting what's apparently a Kinect ad, but Japan is already on its second! More »

What good's a pet lizard if it doesn't morph into a dragon? THQ and Blitz Games will perhaps endanger the welfare of real, ordinary chameleons (color-changing? pfft), tempting children to turn away from their terrariums and step into the world of Fantastic Pets, the so-called "first augmented reality game" for Kinect, coming March 2011.

While Fantastic Pets might start off as an utterly domestic pet sim -- kids pick out a dog, cat, horse or lizard -- dedicated pretend care will eventually expand the game's genus well beyond the apparently tame Kinectimals kingdom. The lines between reality and fantasy will blur as players are transported into the gameworld through commonplace camera technology, barking orders as they command their beasts through mini-games and talents shows. Can your kid suspend disbelief long enough to reach the "professional ranks" of the vaunted Pet Trainer?

"As you discover your pet's personality and become enmeshed within the world, Fantastic Pets becomes more like a personalized adventure and less like a game," says THQ ringmaster Martin Good. But at what point do you break it to the young man? No honey, unicorns ... They've -- they've never been real.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the Michael Jackson game - which are Move and Kinect compatible respectively - have been delayed into 2011. The DS, PSP and Wii versions will still be out in November. Shamon! More »

#clips This video just popped up on YouTube, purporting to be the debut advertisement for Kinect once its television marketing campaign begins. Ads that leaked out before this one were "unfinished." More »

A little elbow grease, a leap of faith and a splash of sacrifice.

#kinect We were kind of hoping today's Kinect plug on Oprah would mean she'd be piloting a virtual raft with her body, but the episode's YOU GET A KINECT! YOU GET A KINECT! YOU GET A KINECT! finale is even better. More »

A million dollars isn't a cool amount of money to spend on marketing for your new phone platform and motion-sensing gaming peripheral. You know what is cool? A billion dollars. That's apparently the current company line over at Microsoft, which, according to TechCrunch, will spend $400 million on advertising for Windows Phone 7, and an additional half a billion dollars on marketing for the Kinect, according to the New York Post (via All Things Digital).

According to the reports, that money will be spent on cross-promotions with various other brands, like Burger King and Kellogg's cereal, new media mainstays like a buyout of the front page of YouTube, as well as ad buys on hit shows like "Glee" and "Dancing with the Stars." From what we've heard, both of those titles incorporate a great deal of dancing, which seems like a reasonable fit for a certain Kinect launch title. We're speaking, of course, about Fighters Uncaged.

Motion sensor appearing on Oprah tomorrow.

Expect to see Kinect everything this holiday.

#xbox360 This morning Microsoft unveiled the 17 games that will be part of the Xbox 360's motion-sensing Kinect "launch portfolio" next month. More »

He may never be a Metacritic standout, but SpongeBob SquarePants has won the hearts of millions of little ones -- it doesn't matter what we think about his games. Having shipped 29 million copies of pure SpongeBob gold since 2002, THQ isn't about to let the money-maker off the hook. The publisher has renewed its partnership with Nickelodeon for multi-year rights to develop and release SpongeBob titles across major platforms and distribution channels.

The first game under the new agreement is being developed for 3DS, Kinect and THQ's own uDraw GameTablet for Wii. It will be released next year, and you'll probably have to buy it (and one of those new technologies) if you've got a kid between ages 2 and 11.

#xbox360 Advertising for two new products. More »

#xbox360 This morning Microsoft unveiled the 17 games that will be part of the Xbox 360's motion-sensing Kinect launch next month. More »

#xbox360 The subject of much gumflapping post E3, Kinect's ability to handle players who are sitting down has been more finely tuned, Eurogamer reports. It's now calibrated to focus on your neck-al area rather than your ass-al area. More »

#clips This is Kinect outside of Macy's in New York City's Herald Square. There were no Kinects in the window displays at GameStop a block south. What kind of crowd do we think Microsoft is going for with their no-controller controller? More »

We write up rhythm games' soundtracks pretty frequently, but it's rare for one of these lists to possess the kind of hypnotic power to send us into dancing fits by simply reading the songs therein. That's what's happened to us after reading the complete Dance Central tracklist posted after the jump, which, as you can imagine, is making it awfully hard to type right now. We can usually get in a few words before our very spirit compels us to do more popping and locking.

Seriously, you have to check out the list of songs posted after the jump -- but only if you're in a dancing-appropriate location, like your home, or a ballet class, or an old, abandoned factory. If you're not too busy moving uncontrollably to that funky beat, we suggest watching the Poisonous trailer posted even further down.

#music What will you be dancing to when MTV Games and Harmonix releases Dance Central for Microsoft's Kinect? Check out the entire toe-tapping track list right here. More »

Though Fable 3 creative lead Peter Molyneux has kept mum every time we've asked him what Kinect functionality was to be implemented in his studio's forthcoming game, a Fable rep casually let slip to Kotaku that the game at one point included statue making and tomato throwing. Wait, huh? Unfortunately, the representative realized the err of their ways and wouldn't say anything else about the cut minigames.

Molyneux explained to us back in August that the Kinect functionality had been cut from Fable 3's launch due to the need for more time to fully develop the experience. "Is this what people would expect Kinect to be in something like Fable?," Molyneux rhetorically wondered at the time, clarifying that "the answer, quite frankly, was 'no.'" Though Microsoft and Lionhead have yet to confirm as much officially, Molyneux also teased the possible inclusion of Kinect features in the future of the Fable series, saying, "I think the future for Kinect and Fable is probably bright." We expect, for example, that the technology harvested from Milo's virtual corpse is likely coming to the Fable franchise in the future. It appears, however, that the future won't be bright red.

#xbox360 Early concepts to control portions of Fable III with Microsoft's Kinect sensor just weren't good enough to bring to gamers, a representative for the game told Kotaku this week. Agreed. The tomato idea doesn't sound awesome. More »